“The play mocks the Church”

The Cardinal Newman Society’s top story today is Marianist University of Dayton’s production of bare, a “homosexual-themed pop-rock opera”:

Tonight, the University of Dayton Theater Program kicks off its six-performance run of the homosexual-themed pop-rock opera “bare.” The musical focuses on the relationship between two homosexual high school students and their struggles at a Catholic boarding school. The play runs in the University of Dayton’s Boll Theatre in Kennedy Union, March 15, 16, 17, 21, 22, and 23.

The play by Jon Hartmere, Jr. and Damon Intrabartolo debuted in Los Angeles in 2000, and has been performed at fringe festivals across the country. As noted in the University of Dayton promotional poster, the musical contains adult language and content.

The play mocks the Church. It features scenes of males kissing each other, a vision of a psuedo-Virgin Mary encouraging a boy to “come out,” and a scene mocking the Sacrament of Confession.

DAYTON — University of Dayton Police along with Dayton Police have calmed a large disturbance involving more than one thousand students in the 400 block of Kiefaber Street.

Just before 5a.m. police from around the Miami Valley responded to the student housing area equipped with riot gear.

According to our crews on the scene, students were jumping on top of cars, throwing glass beer bottles into the street and yelling at police officers. Kiefaber Street is littered with broken glass, beer cans and trash.

Many cars, including police cruisers, were damaged in the disturbance.

At least one student was seen being handcuffed. Other students were seen being pushed with police riot gear shields and resisting officer’s efforts to calm the crowd. …

If the events of the past week don’t prompt Archbishop Schnurr to summon President Curran for a tête-à-tête, I’m not sure what will.

Is this the modern day equivalent of the “Pope Joan” vulgarity? A few years ago the archdiocese in which I live offered discounted tuition for Religious Education to attend the University of Dayton. I am so happy that I had nothing to do with the university. I am not interested in being “educated” by CINOs (Catholics in Name Only).

The rot set in a long time ago. I’m a UD ’90 alum, and I remember student groups openly distributing condoms during the late ’80s without so much as a peep from the administration. In recent decades, the school has made a fetish out of its treatment of homosexuality, distributing t-shirts with the logo “Gay? I’m cool with that.” and constantly scrutinizing its friendliness to the homosexual community in official publications. It is rather sad that the Archdiocese of Cincinnati arguably has the two worst Catholic universities in the United States within its boundaries.

If Curran gets called in for a tete a tete than he’ll go with a black eye. The Dayton Daily News and WHIO are reporting Curran showed up at the riot in an effort to calm students and ended up getting clocked in the face by a police shield.

Oh, wow. A play about homosexuals feeling repressed by their community, which happens to be Catholic this time around. How original. How cutting edge. How bold. How… yawn. I’ll bet we could write the synopsis without even seeing it.

I am not sure the progressives have had an original idea about sex since the 1960s. Even there, “Spring Awakening” was hatched in Germany many years before that.

As I say: yawn. They must realize this, as I did when I was a progressive. It helped my conversion. Maybe it’ll do the same with the current crop of university students.